Alone and Alone
by Neftzer
Summary: The thoughts of Charles Gunn in the episodes BELONGING and SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW.
1.

**Solamente y Solamente** _Alone and Alone_  
  
**Charles Gunn stands above the make-shift funeral pyre of his friend George, and thinks.**

Whack. It was like the sound made when the bigger guys held your five-year-old body down and let you have it. Like the sound you unleashed at thirteen when you'd more than had enough and could almost hold your own. And it was the word that explained what your life had veered off into at twenty-two, after a lot of abuse given and taken, and you maybe, maybe, had almost convinced yourself you'd come around a corner--you'd accomplished something, you were on top. 

But instead, there was that sound again--only this time it was the sound of rounding that corner and having your confidence--your, whatever--smacked out of you as you slammed straight into a wall you never allowed yourself to believe was there--not there for you, anyway. You were above it. King of the Hill--you wrestled your way up there with no thought to the blood or sweat or long nights, or anything. You were tops. Head dog. 

And then, "whack." Antithesis was, you weren't straddling the top of the heap, and what you were looking down at--surveying--wasn't the peaceful kingdom you fought to create, defended to live. No, you were standing on top of graffitti-scarred walls, watching what should have been a block-party bonfire engulf the exsanguinated body of one of your peeps. 

That was whack. Knowing the word exsanguinated. Standing removed, off in the distance--the complete apogee of where you'd always known you belonged. A stranger among your own. And knowing there was no explaining it away. No defense, no strategy or confrontation, no vindication. Might could only make so much right, and sure, it could make your crew shut up and follow you, and swallow back their objections out of fear, but if you couldn't sell yourself on it, it got you nowhere. It pulled you apart like a shredding rope that couldn't be tied to anything because there was too little of its own strength left. 

And then what? 

Miss Lyyah, back in the day, she had known. "Charlie-boy," she had told you often enough when you was coming up, "Take care yo'self, and the Good Lord look after the rest." 

And you had assumed when she said yo'self that it just naturally included Alonna--who was as much a part of you as your hand or your ear--or your heart. You believed Miss Lyyah, had faith in her words. If you took care of Alonna, and had a care for Charlie-boy, things around you both would work out--whether by the grace of Miss Lyyah's Good Lord or someone else, you didn't look too closely into the nature of said grace. And you didn't question its existence. No more than you investigated finding a ten on the sidewalk in the better part of downtown, or interrogated a chick who was particularly fly about how she came to be so. You smiled for the pleasure of her company, or the feel of the bill in your fold, and accepted fact as fact. The world was what it was. It gave what it gave, and took what it took, and your job was not to critique it, not to question it, or inspect its motives. Your job was to take care yo'self. Because no one else was gonna do it for you. 

And when exactly did you notice how many depended on you to be taken care of? Or didn't you? Didn't you ever realize that the initial yo'self, made up of Alonna and you, had grown to so many? She lost the fight when your back was turned away from watching hers, and sure, you went back in for her--risked yourself, but TOO LATE. There was nothing left to claim but the sour memory of wood on cold flesh--dead on dead, your mouth dusty with its ashes. 

Was it better to be Angel, then, after all? To throw it all out when you knew--when you decided it was too much? "You're fired." But Rondell and Cassy and Luckas and George's girl, Poniya--they weren't here for the pay or the glory. They were here to fight for living--to push against darkness and--whatever wanted to take that life away. Telling them they could all go now, you were moving on, closing time, wouldn't accomplish anything. Telling them that you were sorry you hadn't been stand-up for them wouldn't either. They knew that--they were standing aroung the results of that. 

People died, you told yourself. Always, always, people died. But not because of you, because you weren't minding the store, because you had failed to represent. Was that the fear in you Cordelia had seen? Was this night--this fire before you (and inside of you) something her vision gift could have warned you off? Why didn't she ever--couldn't she ever--put things into succinct directions as a result of what she saw? Miss Lyyah had had the sight--of some sort--and she had had no trouble offering some guidance--some shout-out of warning when necessary. But what had Cordy told you? That she would protect you. Could she have even imagined tonight? Could the dying-to-be-famous, without-responsibility Ms. C. Chase have possibly had the capacity to understand what you could feel inside you on a night like this? Disgust with yourself burrowing like termites in your bones, rivers of hot rage scalding your eyes? And sadness, like a quicksand you could drown in. _Could_ she have understood? 

Could you? 

Fear had been something to handle, to control, to attack. Fear had always death. And winning against it had been knowing that it was something you had the power to prevent--to decide--to fight--as long as you had the 411. But tonight, tonight it had changed into a new pair of trous (or were you just noticing it for the first time?). Tonight fear was _their_ deaths; Cushia's, Phaison's, Rika's. _George's_. Tonight fear was knowing that you couldn't fight it for all of them. 

And fear was knowing that you would have to tell them so. 

********************* 

DISCLAIMER: The characters/plots/etc. of _Angel_ are not my property, nor should they be, though they would make an excellent Solstice gift. No harm or monetary profit is intended or anticipated by their use here.   
This interior monologue is set during the episode, Belonging.   
Many, many, many blessings on all of you who reviewed my first _Angel_ monologue, _The Main Dish_. Your responses overwhelmed me--and I'm not that easily whelmed. Here's hoping you enjoyed this, too.   
_Cheers._


	2. 

**Gunn's apartment. Cordelia has been missing for eleven hours.**

He'd been getting paged all night. He could still feel the vibration of his beeper, though he'd turned it off nearly an hour ago. Despite that, the sensation stayed with him like a thorn, low, in his side. Irritating. Uncomfortable. He had two--two beepers, and the second he kept on, willing to attend any request it made from him, but it sprang to life infrequently anymore. He was not sure he had noticed when that had changed, when the two units had swapped precedence in his life--when the text-pager Cordelia had handed him (along with news of his salary) had become the tone he listened for, the buzz he anticipated. He only knew that now, sitting here in his crib, it seemed wrong to him. And so he had turned it off. 

He was weary from Wesley's calls, coming so close on the heels of George's death, the Englishman frantically trying to relate that Cordelia was gone--disappeared into some sort of a portal somehow. Gunn hadn't retained the particulars--he didn't seem to have enough room for anything more in his mind. And Wes' number had kept flashing up at him, as the other man had paged him again and again--sending text asking where he was and when they could expect him to arrive and help out. Gunn was too weary to respond--to even read them after awhile. And once there was a page from the line on Angel's desk. Just the digits sent, that time. He didn't know if it was still Wes or not. He'd found himself tempted to return that one--just to see if Angel had better news--that they wouldn't need him after all, she'd been spit back out, unharmed--and maybe with an attitude adjustment. 

The ability for action--something he usually possessed without effort--had left him. He felt like he was being forced to choose, and rather than do that he stood from the ragged sofa that he had found it impossible to part with even when he had found better digs, and sent his fist into the nearest plasterboard. The walls were cheap and the space between studs caved easily so that his hand didn't even suffer. 

Did they even know if she was alive? 

He didn't think they could. There had been no mention of any communication between where Cordy was and where _they_ were standing. And it was a one-way trip--Wes hadn't put the gloss on it for him. There wasn't much of a chance for coming back. 

The risk was too great and the reward was too--too what? Unknowable? She could be dead, she could be transformed into something terrible. She could be in pain. It was easier for him to imagine her dead, he realized. Death was something he couldn't change--couldn't be expected to change. He looked down at his knuckles, felt the pain slipping in from the blow he'd dealt the wall, and thought about the first time he'd seen her--really seen her--that time in the hospital, what? a year ago? 

She had been strapped down like a psychotic, not a speck of make-up on her, wrapped up in one of those gowns they gave you. And he could have been anyone and she wouldn't have known he was there she was in that much pain, that much torment. He hadn't kept a very good watch-out for Wesley that time. He had found himself too intent on Cordelia. The times he had wanted to go over to her bedside from where he had stood his distant vigil, thinking (however foolishily) that if he could touch her, his hand to her face, her cheek--like his mother had with him--it would have--what? Been better for her? She had fits almost constantly, wrenching her arms in the restraints, tearing out of them four, maybe five, times. She had looked like a saint to him, a martyr on the rack--something you read about in Sunday School, saw in cathedral windows, or on brothers' tattoos. 

It was pain like that that he imagined her in now. Alone. Not dead. Maybe dead. Unknown. One way. All bad words. He couldn't go. He told himself he didn't know what such a decision made him, but he did. He told himself that that time in the hospital, he hadn't really been needed at all, his presence had been no more than cursory. If anyone could find her--should find her--it was Angel and Wesley, she was theirs--part of _their_ world, _their_ responsibility (he knew she would not like being thought of as anyone's responsibility). 

It was their place to go, to bring her back. It made sense that they would risk everything for her. _Who was he to Cordelia?_ No one in particular, he thought. _Who was she to him?_ He told himself the answer to that was irrelevant. He avoided answering it. He avoided asking it again. There were people here who depended on him, people to whom he had pledged himself. George's death had gotten his attention back on the greater good and he could not abandon the others now. He _would_ not. 

He would drive to the hotel, speak to Angel face-to-face. Angel would understand, that they asked too much. He would tell them to find her. 

Gunn swallowed as he closed his apartment's door behind him. Every decision he had made in the past two days left his stomach curdled. 

***************************** 

**Back at Gunn's apartment. Cordelia has been gone for nearly twenty-five hours.**

The message played, the turning of the tape's spindles recorded in background to Angel's voice. Gunn's Code-A-Phone was far from new and little used. He could not recall a message from Angel ever having been on it. 

"So as soon as Wes solves our scattering problem, we'll probably be leaving. Don't know if we'll be coming back...It's eleven-sixteen...Cordy's been gone for almost twenty-four hours, now. I think I covered everything. Oh, the mortgage for the hotel...is under the company name. The lease is up in six months, at least that's what they tell me. So...I guess that's it. Take care of yourself." 

Gunn's watch showed him the time, he had looked at it after each playing of the message. He hadn't seen the movie, but he imagined that Angel sounded more than a little like the captain on the Titanic going down with his ship. He'd made his choice--which Angel obviously respected or he wouldn't have called--but he didn't feel settled. Maybe he'd listen to it again. At the least it passed the time. It was a long message, full of information and instructions. He stood from the couch where he had settled during its last playing--the fourth (he nearly had it memorized now, right down to the sighs and pauses), and pressed rewind. 

Gunn had trouble with the last line. "Take care of yourself." He kept hearing Miss Lyyah's voice behind it. "And the Good Lord look after the rest." Yeah, he'd been doing great at that. If only hisself was all he was expected to care for. 

There was a knock at the door and he went to answer it. It was George's girl, Poniya. She had been with him--and Alonna--from almost the beginning. She was not someone he wanted to face just now. 

Angel's message had rewound and was starting up again, and not realizing Gunn had heard it before, Poniya entered silently, waiting for it to finish before she spoke. 

"Gunn, this is Angel, here. I've, uh, got some things I need to tell you--in case. I--if--I--things don't turn out for the best, I'd like you to take something to Buffy for me. There's money here at the hotel for the trip--I'd like you to take it in person. No harm, no foul if we make it, but if not I've put an envelope in the safe with the petty cash, it more than explains things for her. It'll be easy to find, it's got her name and address on it." 

Poniya made eye contact with Gunn, clearly curious, but kept silent. Gunn had re-seated himself on the sofa next to her. 

"...if you...could visit Faith maybe once or twice--just to let her know what happened. That I didn't--. If you can find the time. And Cordelia's family--her parents. I...don't know what they should be told, you could maybe--" Gunn had risen--knowing this part was coming--and keyed the stop button. 

Poniya turned in her seat. "What was that about, G?" 

"Nothing." 

"I was coming to get you to come down to supper. You haven't eaten all day." 

He was surprised she (or anyone else) had noticed. He hadn't. "Haven't been hungry," he grunted. He thought about telling her of the feeling in his gut--the one that put a damper on things like hunger. The one that felt like battery acid every time he listened to Angel's message. Every time he thought about George. Or Poniya, or the rest. 

"Well, I'll tell them downstairs you won't be coming." 

"How's that?" 

"Well, your message. Sounds like he needs your help." 

"Yeah, so what?" 

"So that's what you do, ain't it, Brother?" 

"It's a one-way trip, Poniya. You don't understand what you saying." 

"It's always a one-way trip, G. We all knew that the day we signed up." 

"Yeah, well I'm here now. I won't walk out on my responsibilities again." 

Her eyes began to tear up but she held it back. "There's those downstairs that blame you, sure. I won't lie to you. But life's about change and that's really more what they're kicking against. And if you think your responsibilties don't stretch more than one way here, you haven't been feeling from your heart." 

His mouth had turned dry. It was one thing to hear such words, but another to hear them from George's girl. "I been feeling it so much I been sick." 

She stood up and grabbed him for a hug. "It's good to know _you_ still know you got one--before all that feeling blindsides you. Things here will go on. I'll see to that--the others will see to that. And we'll all use more caution, I think. _I'll_ see to that." 

He reached for the Code-A-Phone and popped the cassette tape out, deciding. "If I don't come back, see that Anne gets this. I think she'll know best what to do with it." He extended it to her. 

She spoke in a voice of warning. "If you're gone too long, you're gonna miss out on a blessed event of my and George's making." 

"Excuse me?" 

"That's right," she re-iterated, chiding him. "I haven't told the others yet, but I wouldn't want you to be too surprised when you get back from--wherever." 

A jumble of feelings falling on him at once, he kissed his congratulations onto her forehead, even as he saw the tears of mourning for George start to spill out from her eyes. "Take care yo'self," he directed. 

"And Good Lord look after the rest," Poniya added, seeing him to the door. 

He could not let himself believe it would be the last time he would see her. 

*************** 

DISCLAIMER: The characters/plots/etc. of _Angel_ are not my property, nor should they be, though they would make an excellent Solstice gift. No harm or monetary profit is intended or anticipated by their use here.   
This is set during the episode Somewhere Over the Rainbow.   
I wrote this (sort of) for chrysophyta, who was so terribly upset that Angel called Gunn and not Buffy (not that she would have been at home, anyway). 


End file.
